Associated Press
DOVER, Del. -- Kyle Busch would like to believe he would have defeated Jimmie Johnsoneven without the four-time champion making a rare pit road mistake.
Busch never will know, and he doesn't really care.
When Johnson was penalized for speeding on the final pit stop, that was all the opportunity Busch needed to pull away late Sunday and win his second race in two days at Dover International Speedway.
Johnson made a quick burst out of the box and accelerated trying to catch a departing Busch coming off pit road. Busch joked that he wanted to "coax him into speeding a little bit."
"I don't know if that happened or not, but I'm going to say it did," Busch said.
Busch's victory capped a wildly successful weekend for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
Busch missed the tripleheader sweep on the one-mile concrete track by just a couple gallons of gas.
He was in position to win the Trucks Series race on Friday but ran out of gas at the end. He easily took the checkered flag in Saturday's second-tier series race and raced about 800 miles in three days.
"It's not going to hurt my feelings too bad to go to bed tonight and know that I lost Friday," Busch said. "I'm going to think more about today."
On Sunday, Busch swapped the lead with Johnson throughout most of the 400-mile race run in front of thousands of empty seats. He expected the duel to continue until Johnson was clocked at 40.09 mph in a 35 mph zone.
"I just had too much forward bite leaving the pit box and got going too fast and got busted," Johnson said.
Busch was sorry he was denied an epic late-race showdown.
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